Is there a vast science conspiracy dating back to the time of Copernicus? Probably not, but this video is fun anyway.

Did you know that science is perpetrating a vast global conspiracy to prevent you from knowing the truth about the shape of our solar system’s orbits? Yeah, me neither. Remember how in school they taught us that the planets all move in a circular orbit around the sun? And later, when they thought we could handle it, they admitted that they had lied, and that the orbits were actually elliptical? Well, the fascinating video below (which might be more fascinating with a different soundtrack) finally reveals the shocking truth that scientists have been hiding from us all along! Or not. As cool as the clip is, and although it highlights an interesting aspect of relative motion in a rather visual way, most of the hyperbole in its claims about this radical “new” vortex model of the solar system that is somehow destined to replace the “old Newtonion [sic]/Copernican Heliocentric model” is exactly that. There is nothing new about looking at the motion of the planets in this way, and in spite of the fact that the video highlights the fact that the sun is indeed not a fixed ball like the one at the local planetarium, it also is itself a pretty inaccurate representation of the relative motion it intends to convey. Ignore the fact that the creator of the video cites sources like Dr. Pallathadka Keshava Bhat and Nassim Haramein, the physics crank, whose cred is mostly derived from his appearance as an “expert” in the wacky conspiracy movie Thrive. He may just be doing it for page views, or maybe he actually believes it. Who cares. The video is fun, and I’d bet a nickel that you’ve never thought about the fact that on top of the Earth rotating on its axis as it revolves around the sun, we’re also moving in a dizzying spiral through the galaxy, occasionally dipping into the dense arm of it long enough to cause mass extinctions . Video below.